PunditGuy

the answer is ‘No’, James.

Priceless. Drudge posted this picture of Ahnold on his main page, along with a link to a story about the governator questioning the timing of a visit by President Bush.

See? He really is the Terminator.

I’m on a business trip in Frankfurt, Germany which means lots of time ‘pressing the flesh’ and not a lot of time at the computer. Today was unreal. Started at 6 AM with coffee and a quick email check, out the door at 8 AM, meetings all day, business dinner, and then I finally get back to the hotel room at 12:30 AM!

Knowing I haven’t blogged at all today, I get inside, take the day items out of my pockets, cell phone on the table, shoes and socks come off, and I open up the computer. Phone rings –  it’s the wife…, so of course, I take the call. 15 minutes. It’s now 12:52 AM. Boot up the computer, download email…there are a couple of personal ones that require immediate reading. Now it’s 1:00 AM. Still haven’t blogged anything yet. So I open up my blogging tabs in FireFox – 12 in all – and I start looking at some stuff for inspiration. 1:03 AM – and suddenly I hear a little voice inside my head…

“It’s one in the morning and you’re gonna blog, huh? You gotta be up at 6 AM. Oh, and another thing – YOU’RE WIPED OUT, YOU’RE STINKING TIRED, YOU’RE WHIPPED!”

The little man is always right.

G’night.

Delirium

Pronunciation: di-‘lir-E-&m
Function: noun
Etymology: Latin, from delirare to be crazy

1 : a mental disturbance characterized by confusion, disordered speech, and hallucinations

Trial one started today and I already wish it was over. The media will spin this circus in all sorts of directions, making believe that Saddam has a chance to beat the case against him. They want the roller coaster ride atmosphere. We’re smarter than that though. We all know what his future holds.

Cheney resigns so Condi can take the VP slot and slide easily into the 2008 nomination.

Sounds like a great plot for a left-wing Hollywood movie, but that’s it. Perhaps there is an actual screenplay in the works here? I’ll push the rumor even further and say that I think Ace is behind it. He’s been looking for a deal for some time (right Ace?).

                 Photo Courtesy of ushmm.org

Today, I visited the Dachau concentration camp. It was an experience I’ll never forget.

I’m not Jewish, and I haven’t studied much of the history of the Holocaust. I have visited the Anne Frank Museum in Amsterdam, I’ve been to the U.S. Holocaust Museum in Washington, D.C., and yes, I’ve watched Schindler’s List. That’s the extent of my physical experience with the Holocaust. Some of you know that I’ve been in Munich for the past couple of days. Driving around, I found signs pointing toward the town of Dachau. It didn’t occur to me that this place was so close by. I knew I had to go see it.

Established in March 1933, the Dachau concentration camp was the first regular concentration camp established by the Nazis. Today, it is a museum, an archive, a library and most of all, a place of remembrance.

It is hard to describe what I felt as I walked up to this place. Dachau is surrounded by a suburb where people live in two story apartment buildings. When they look outside their kitchen window, they can see over the wall. Some look out and see this.

It’s just one of the half a dozen towers where Nazi SS were posted, waiting for camp prisoners to cross a line near the wall. When they did, they were immediately shot. 

As I walked into Dachau, I was greeted with these words.

“Work Makes One Free”. You might recognize this motto as the same one posted at the main gate of Auschwitz.

Dachau is huge. So much bigger than I had imagined (see the map here). It could easily take a couple of hours to walk around and see everything. I focused on two places. The Crematorium and the maintenance building.

On my way to the Crematorium building, I couldn’t help but think about all of the people who lived here, worked here, suffered here and died here.

Walking just outside the camp and through a gate, I came upon this building. It looks rather plain actually, but it was nothing ordinary at all. It was here that tens of thousands of people died.

There is only one picture showing the Dachau Crematorium in operation. It was taken illegally by a prisoner, but it survived and is now the single representation of the horrors that occurred here.

There are two rooms inside this building that are the most difficult to visit in the entire camp. The first is the gas chamber.

And the second place is the room containing the ovens.

No one talks much in here. There really isn’t a whole lot to say. It’s mostly a place to reflect. A place to remember. A place which must never exist again. 

In the back of the Crematorium, you’ll find this memorial. It was here where the ashes of thousands of those killed at Dachau were dumped by the Nazi SS.

As I mentioned earlier, the Dachau concentration camp covers a very large area. As I walked away from the Crematorium building, I took in this view of the camp road, and the foundations of the 30 bunk houses. These were built to house 200 prisoners, but at the time of the liberation of Dachau, they each held over 2,000 people.

Dachau is filled with memorial plaques. This one is particularly haunting.

I exited the camp through the same way I came in. Walking through this gate, I thought about all of those who never got the chance to leave this place as I did. Their memory lives here.

I experienced something of the Holocaust today that no book could describe, no pictures convey, and nothing a Hollywood movie could present. Dachau is a piece of history, a living memorial to the people who died there, but also to the survivors who struggled and suffered, but walked away on their day of liberation.

We must never forget what happened during the Holocaust, and we must take whatever measures necessary to ensure it never happens again. I know one thing. I’ll never forget what I saw today. Dachau won’t let me.

Can we really take one more of these?

UPDATE: Now officially a hurricane.

UPDATE II: Cat 5, records are broken as Gov. Jeb Bush asks, “Why?”

| National Hurricane Center | Forecast advisory | Track | Skeetobite Weather |

This story from the Associated Press sets a new standard for stupidity. Darlene Superville reveals the secret about Karl Rove’s garage – it’s like any other garage in America. Duh.

He is “the architect” who steered George W. Bush to victory four times, twice as Texas governor and twice as president.

But can Karl Rove organize his own garage? Can the master of Bush’s political planning figure out where to put the ladders, paint cans and cardboard boxes?

Rove’s wife, Darby, raised the white garage door one morning last week to show journalists outside the million-dollar brick home that the deputy chief of staff, assistant to the president and senior adviser wasn’t home. All the interest came on the eve of his testimony Friday before a grand jury investigating who in the White House might have revealed the identity of a CIA operative.

There was no car in the garage. And the stuff left behind turned out not to be much different from what gathers dust inside most American garages.

Yes, I know what you’re thinking. Why would anyone read past the second paragraph of this idiotic story? You got me. All I can say is it’s voyeurism, pure and simple.

She then goes on to list the inventory.

• Some cardboard file boxes stacked one on top of the other, labeled “Box 6,” “Box 4” and what appears to be “Box 7.” No sign of boxes 1, 2, 3 and 5.
• What appear to be paint cans stacked alongside a folded, folding chair.
• A rather large wood crate marked “FRAGILE” and painted with arrows indicating which way is up. On top of the crate, two coolers.
• A tall aluminum ladder.
• A snow shovel leaned in front of another cardboard box.
• Wicker baskets inside of wicker baskets on top of a shelf running the length of the rear wall. Transparent plastic storage bins crammed with indiscernible stuff. Another cardboard box.
• In one corner, the rear wheel of a bicycle sticks out, along with what appears to be a helmet.
• Another ladder, this one green, leaning sideways.

For these reasons I thank God every day that I didn’t ‘grow up’ to be a reporter who’s career is defined by staking out in front of famous people’s houses.

Why is it news when our government mismanages our money?

Roughly $1 of every $5 in loans the Small Business Administration directly made to companies hurt by the Sept. 11 attacks has fallen into default, leaving the government with an uphill effort to recover millions of dollars in taxpayer money.

The agency is just now learning about the magnitude of businesses that went under or stopped making payments. Its Sept. 11 direct disaster loan program often gave recipients two years before their first payments were due, according to documents reviewed by The Associated Press.

$245 million is in default. Now you’d think the business that received these loans were based in New York City right? Wrong.

Taxpayers are picking up the tab for a $992,000 loan made to an Atlanta hotel; $986,000 to a Florida boat dealer; $620,000 to a Maine broccoli farm; and $38,900 to a Lubbock, Texas, computer store.

$620 grand for a broccoli farm – I guess Americans just couldn’t eat the vegetable after the events of 9/11. Makes perfect sense to me. Heh.

The SBA loan programs received increased scrutiny from Congress and elsewhere after an AP story in September disclosed that some companies with Sept. 11 relief loans from banks under the STAR program weren’t harmed by the attacks and didn’t even know their money was being drawn from the program.

Oh, you mean like the loan made to the Utah dog boutique, and the perfume bar in the Virgin Islands? Puhleeze.

The SBA says that while some loans might have been made in haste, the agency is vigorously prosecuting people who obtained tax dollars or loan guarantees under false pretenses.

When they can find them, of course.

This is just another example of a broken government agency. Who is going to clean this one up? Who is going to be fired over this waste? Who is going to pay?

Me and you, that’s who.

It looks more like that thing that sits on my desk holding pencils and pens.

Nonetheless, welcome back.